Helicopter drone may serve as scout for Mars 2020 rover

November 21, 2015 As part of an effort to ensure that the Mars 2020 rover does not share the same fate as one of its predecessors, NASA officials are reportedly planning to send a helicopter-like drone along with the next-gen vehicle to act as a guide during its journey and help it avoid hazards. According to Popular Science , the US space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) facility in Pasadena, California is currently designing the drone and plans to have it perform reconnaissance for the rover, guiding it to locations of interest and keeping it out of potholes and sand traps. Not only could this potentially triple the distance the rover could travel in a single day, it would keep it from getting stuck in a hazard, which is what happened to the Spirit rover in April 2009. Unable to gain enough traction to free itself, that rover effectively suffered a premature death. Outgoing JPL chief Charles Elachi recently told Space News that the helicopter drone was not approved for the mission as of yet, but that researchers were working on technology that would “enable us to actually have a drone which will fly around the rover, survey the […]